Pours a really nice coppery-amber color with a light tan head. Retention is not so great, dropping to a faint ring quickly.Smell is malty with a caramel note and a weird sweet floral note that is very hard to place specifically. No spice notes to be found though they were expected.Taste is the same as the smell, malt, caramel, and that same odd sweet floral note. It isn't quite strong enough to be offputting but it isn't able to be overlooked, either. No real spice though a very faint pepper note does show eventually.Solid medium-full body, somewhat warming, smooth-ish with light effervescence. Nothing great sadly. A decent beer, that's all.

Great Lakes Christmas Ale is a crystal clear amber ale with a soft, waxy, yellowish head that leaves nice lacing on the glass. It has a light aroma with hints of spice and candy. It's medium bodied and a little sharp. The finish is a little metallic and gritty. It's quite sweet and well spiced. It almost tastes like a candy cane. There's a little caramel and some juniper bitterness that lingers after the swallow. This is very clearly a Christmas Ale. The balance is pretty good but it's too sweet to have more than one.

that great lakes-ian soul that their brews posess .best of all, got a bunch of single bottles for $1.00 since it's way out of season .a spicy nutmeg and ginger-malt finish concludes the taste profile of this Cleveland-brew .definetly a weirdo/geek even amidst the X-mas beer world .